Page 113 of Calling of the Crown

Safe.

Calm.

Peace.

Stay.

Here.

This was nice. This was easy. I wanted to stay here and float forever where there was no pain, no death …

Death.

Akira! I thought, fighting past the whispers of the water.

I opened my eyes and found my watery form drifting through the current, and somehow, I just instinctively knew that I was in the Moradian Sea, the heart of the Water Fae Kingdom. The water had brought me here somehow, but I wasn’t done. I still had a battle left before me, what had been my goal all along.

My translucent figure sank deeper into the ocean, but having a new sense of power and connection, I didn’t fight the sea.

I became it.

I felt myself expanding and growing larger like a sponge soaking up water. I stood from the ocean, and as I rose out of the Morardian Sea, I loomed tall enough to see clear over the trees of the Lylora Woods and all the way into the Valley of Wisps. The Fae gathered there looked up at me like I was something right out of a horror film, and I was sure that’s exactly what I looked like.

A monstrous figure of a woman made out of the ocean.

Calling to the water that made me up, I silently commanded, “Bring me all those still alive in gold-and-green.”

Water burst free from my towering form, snaking through the field, collecting those I’d asked for. With the task complete, I sank back down into the sea, drifting further and deeper than I ever had before until I reached the centermost part of the ocean, far away from anything except water.

My body took on my normal size but remained as clear and buoyant as water. When I saw the shapes drifting toward me, I opened a massive pocket of air, like an enclosed stadium. Suddenly, the water deposited all the Fae dressed in green-and-gold before me in the space I’d created. Elias was front and center.

“What have you done?” Elias snapped as he looked around at where I’d brought everyone.

There was a collective gasp, shouts of fear, and every sound in between.

“First and foremost,” I began, my voice carrying over the crowd thanks to the water producing it from all around us. “If you can’t tell, I’ve brought you to my domain. We’re deep in the sea right now, and I’m the only thing stopping these walls from collapsing. One step out of line or an attack on me …”

I looked to a place in the top of the watery box I’d built. A hole formed, and a gush of water immediately rained down on everyone. Screams filled the space, but with a quick flick of my wrist, the water rose back up into the air and out the hole, which I resealed.

“I assume you get my point,” I said, my tone hard. “I doubt even your strongest swimmers would make it to the surface before drowning, so I suggest no one attempt anything right now. Unless you all want to die very agonizing deaths. Drowning is not fun. Trust me. I know.”

“Why’d you bring us here?” a voice demanded.

“To kill us?”

“Make us slaves to your demands?”

Smiling, I shook my head. “I believe you have me confused with Elias. Those are things he wanted, but that’s not the kind of leader I am. That’s not the kind of person I am, though I’m sure others would like you to believe otherwise. I’m—”

I stopped when I noticed a couple at the front of the group. A dark-skinned woman held another in her arms, and the collapsed lady struggled with a nasty slice through her neck. She had to be seconds away from dying.

I raced to their side and fell to my knees by the wounded woman.

The Fae clutching her pulled her tighter into her arms and growled, “Get the fuck away from us! Don’t touch her!”

Ignoring the angry words, I placed my watery hand over the seeping wound on her throat. My palm warmed, and the skin beneath it closed.

The injured Fae sucked in a breath and blinked rapidly.

---